Mawi watched the captain's raft drift off toward the Siberian fleet. The Rio Grande was holding its position in the tropopause, until it had a clear path to its parking spot in geosynchronous orbit. Until then, Mawi had to babysit the zeppelin and supervise the beginning of its ascent, before he could leave. "Looking good, Captain," Mawi chirped into his mouthpiece, and pantomimed a wave.
"You always wanted to play captain," the captain answered back. "You got five minutes. Don't linger."
Mawi looked over the controls. The ship was fine; only its cargo required decommission. The hydrogen cells and jet tunnels were in pristine condition; even though the Rio Grande was the length of two football fields, its engines could turn the ship around a city block. The empennage panels were still drinking up sunlight and radiation for the fuel cells and ionizing chambers; it could still lay down a quarter inch of ozone in a week that was wide enough to shade New York City.
The main screens monitored the rafts progress to the Siberian fleet, a half-dozen zeppelins attending the Rio Grande's wake. They would continue to sail the stratospheric routes, and anytime some crew needed a spare cruciform fin or grand ionizer, they could float up to the Rio Grande's grave and pick at her perfect bones.
"You deserved better..." Mawi whispered, as he stroked at the ship's panel. He could see the Siberian fleet, He began to fantasize about programming the Rio Grande for re-entry, landing on the captain's doorstep, cratering the entire county... The alert pulled him back to the present: "Three minutes to alignment." He left the bridge...
The rafts were his best option. He was pre-pressured for the orbit; new hires needed at least two months to prepare their bodies for the trip. A trip home was an even bigger committment; it took at least six months to bounce back enough to make the trip again. Easier to wait in orbit, if you wanted to keep working. At the most, it was a week's wait at the elevator, then hop on board another scrubber.
He took the walkway to the shuttles, to get another look at the Earth. The captain barked in his ear, "Mawi, alignment is imminent. How far away from the rafts, son?"
From the window, Mawi could see the curve of the Southern Hemisphere, the shimmering white between the Earth and the stars. Reflexively, he blurted out, "I gotta check the hothouse, sir!"
He tucked the captain's cursing in his pocket and ran for the jungle...
Mawi reached the entrance to the catwalks, the grid that crisscrossed the ceiling of the hothouse. Just above, the 'scrubbers' draped down to over 30 yards in length. Thick as tree trucks, clever as kudzu, resilient as the toughest weeds - that's how the 'scrubbers' had been designed. They provided the raw material that the zeppelin churned out as O3. In six years, they had become the corporate mea culpa of choice, to repair and restore damage (or, at least, present the image of such) to the earth.
Like every grand solution, it came with its own sets of problems. The Rio Grande crop had developed a blight that had reduced oxygen production by half; financially, the ship was a losing proposition. But the plants themselves were exactly as difficult as you'd expect a cross-breed of kudzu and redwoods to be; if they ever managed to take root on Earth, it would be its own global catastrophe. There was even some dispute if the cold vacuum of space was enough to kill the scrubbers; many eyes were watching the fate of the Rio Grande with great interest.
"The ship's aligned! Get on a raft already!" The captain's voice heated Mawi's earpiece. "That's an order!"
Mawi caught sight of the zipline that extended to the jungle floor. "There's only one captain on this boat, sir!"
"Mawi, get over your death wish and get the hell off my boat!"
"I ain't dying, I'm finishing my job!" Mawi secured the line and plunged into the jungle. He knew there were exit suits by the cargo doors; when he-
THWAK! He smacked his head up against a low-hanging scrubber vine. Mawi reeled from the hit, but kept moving downward. He struggled to regain his bearings, not overshoot his target...
He dropped off the line three feet from the floor, and tumbled. Limping, he turned left and faced the cargo doors. "Easy as cake," he mumbled.
Mawi grabbed a suit and kicked on its heater. As he suited up, the captain chirped in, "You're out of range, Mawi. Nobody's coming back for you."
"Didn't expect it, captain." Mawi looked at the suit's wrist-guide; he had just missed his window for the suit's first triangulated landing spot; off the coast of Sydney. The countdown for the next landing spot reset to 2 minutes; Mawi waited...
As the seconds passed, the captain sighed in resignation. "You know... no captain even went up with his ship."
Mawi checked his oxygen supply: 30 minutes. "So where are they transferring you, sir? I didn't know anybody needed a new captain. You signing with the Siberian fleet? Trillemarka? Wuda? Or they giving you one of them new models?"
"Nope. They got a desk for me, in Detroit. I'm going home."
Mawi looked under his feet, beyond the glass, at the outline of South America. "Yeah. Me, too."
His hand hovered to release the doors in 3... 2... 1...
The air stampeded out of the ship and into the void, pulling Mawi along with it. His suit went bezerk with alerts, flashing colors furiously as he spun. If he could steady himself, the helmet would stay green, to let him know he was pointed earthward. He struggled: red, green, red, green, red...
He focused on the receding sight of the Rio Grande; he could finally see the stars surrounding it, embracing it. He could turn himself slowly enough to see the Siberian fleet, circling the Southern pole. Finally, he faced the planet until its expanse stretched beyond his periphery. The green light bathing his face told him that he was doing fine, he was going home...
inspired by the Discover Magazine article, "Carbon Dioxide hits 400 ppm - Does it Matter?"
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